


The Sound of Silence

by InterDimensional_Ventures



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Outer Space, Search for Fitz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 14:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16767421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterDimensional_Ventures/pseuds/InterDimensional_Ventures
Summary: While searching in deep space for Fitz, Daisy gets stranded floating outside of the Zephyr during a space walk.





	The Sound of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> This short fic was written based upon a conversation with @miraculousagentsofkrypton about what it would be like for Daisy, with her ability to sense and control vibrations, to be trapped in the vaccuum of space where vibrations can't propagate.

Daisy hated going on EVA’s but they had been in deep space looking for Fitz for months and sometimes things had to get fixed outside. Fitz would have been first choice for a spacewalk to repair damage to the Zephyr but he wasn’t there of course. Mack was the second choice but he couldn’t do all of the outside work himself so Daisy was the third choice, sometimes she had to spell Mack when he had already been working outside and needed a break. She wished Deke was there, he was used to spacewalks and would be really helpful but he wasn’t. She didn’t even know if he was wandering Earth seeing the sights or if he had simply disappeared as Fitz had theorized.

Jemma double checked the seal on her helmet for her and gave her a thumbs-up sign.

“Keep talking to me the whole time,” Daisy told her. Mack didn’t like to much conversation when he was working, it was distracting to him. Daisy, on the other hand, needed the distraction.

“Of course,” Jemma smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “We are right above the rings of Saturn and they are spectacular! Don’t forget to take a look at them while you’re out there.” 

Daisy shook her head, always the Science nerd. Jemma left the airlock and cycled it shut. Daisy braced herself for the cold, suffocating, numbness that was about to surround her. The air was pumped out of the airlock and back into the ship, the door swung open, and Daisy stood alone in the universe.

Saturn’s rings spread out before her in jaw dropping majesty but Daisy barely noticed. The others couldn’t possibly understand and she was not about to start complaining but space was very different for her than it was for anyone else. She had become so used to the vibrations of the world around her that the oppressive silence of a hard vacuum crushed her. Every day as she walked on the earth or even on the ship she was surrounded by the feel of the floor vibrating, the hum of the air molecules bouncing off of each other, the breathing of her teammates, the hypersonic squeaks of electrons pulsing through circuits. Out in the vacuum of space, there was nothing. 

Vibrations in the everyday world surrounded her, held her, caressed her. She heard them all, felt them all, knew them all intimately in a way that she could never describe to someone who didn’t have her powers. They made her feel immersed in, and connected to, everyone and everything around her. She could even use echolocation to find her way around with her eyes closed if she wanted to.

But vibrations don’t travel through a vacuum. The only thing she felt on these EVA’s was her own breath, her own heartbeat, the faint whisper of her own space suit. Everything else beyond that was…gone. Her whole body felt numb.

“All of your vitals are strong,” Jemma’s voice came through her earphones, “though your heart rate and blood pressure are both spiking. Take some deep breaths and try to relax, everything will be okay. Your suit is working perfectly and you are tethered securely to the ship.”

Jemma thought that Daisy was afraid that something would go wrong on the spacewalk but that wasn’t it at all, she needed vibration like other people needed light. She felt like she was blind at is was more than a bit terrifying. “Pull it together Johnson,” she muttered to herself, clenching her fists. She had a job to do and she was going to do it.

“I’m unhooking my primary tether,” Daisy alerted the crew inside. They used a two-tether system so that you were always connected to the ship by at least one tether. She wished she had some magnetic boots so she could at least walk on the hull of the ship and feel its vibrations through her feet but magnetic boots didn’t work on the titanium-composite hull of the Zephyr. She floated out of the airlock and was reaching for an exterior stanchion to attach her primary tether to when it happened.

A chunk of ice the size of a microwave slammed into the side of the airlock door at several hundred miles an hour and shattered. It cut her secondary tether and showered her with shards of ice.

“Zephyr, we have a problem,” she called out over her mic.

No response.

“Hello Zephyr, do you copy?”

No response.

She watched as the airlock tried to cycle shut but a tiny deflection in the door jamb from the impact kept it from closing properly. The other spacesuits were in the airlock but if they couldn’t get the airlock to close properly then they couldn’t put on suits and rescue her. There were emergency suits in lockers inside the ship itself but they would have to put them all on and then open the entire ship to space in order to come get her.

She realized with a start that she was slowly drifting away from the ship. Why weren’t they answering? 

And her suit was leaking. It was hard to hear the faint sound of escaping over the pounding of her heart but it was there. The ice shards must have punctured her suit somewhere and damaged her radio. 

She forced herself to calm down. “I am The Destroyer of Worlds” she whispered quietly to herself. She had hated that nickname for so long but she had finally claimed it as her own when she was talking to Kasius Sr. There was power in that name and, in that moment, when she felt blind and helpless, she needed to be reminded that she was powerful. “I am the The Destroyer of Worlds!” She yelled at herself. The rush of energy made her feel oddly calm. Her jaw set, her breathing relaxed, and her training as an agent took over. The vacuum of space was a major obstacle but it was not insurmountable. She would find a way.

Normally when Daisy flew or moved things she caused vibrating air to push against them to make them move. There was no air out here to push with. “Okay, Destroyer of Worlds,” she muttered to herself, “we’re going to have to think our way out of this instead of just blasting something.”

She took a quick survey of what she had to work with. There was the primary tether in her hand but she didn’t see anything that she could throw it to and hook it on to since the ice cube that hit the airlock also crushed the stanchion she had been reaching for. There were ice shards all around her but they were floating away even faster than she was. She had a bag of tools and parts but they would be needed for repairs if she got back to the ship so throwing them away from her to try and change her momentum was the option of last resort.

Suddenly, she saw the end of the secondary tether floating around in the airlock. She was 10 feet from the ship and slowly getting further but the tether was at least 40 feet long. That gave her an idea. She began to focus on the back end of the tether where it was attached to the inside of the airlock. She made the molecules vibrate against each other and slowly push the front end out toward her. 

It was maddening. She realized just how much she used her ability to feel vibrations to give herself feedback in these kinds of situations. It was a little like having your hand fall asleep and then trying to use it to pick up coins off of a desk. Your hand still works but you have no sense of touch so you can’t feel your hand or the coins at all. You can control your fingers with sight alone but without the feedback that your sense of touch gives you aren’t quite sure where the edges of the coin are in relation to the tips of your fingers. 

Daisy stayed focused on her task even though her vibration sense felt numb. Slowly the tether worked its way out toward her until she could finally reach it. She breathed a sigh of relief, she had managed to push it out to herself just before she had drifted outside of its 40-foot length. She quickly pulled herself back into the airlock and used her powers to push the door jamb back into alignment. It was only a moment before the airlock filled with air and the entire crew was pushing their way in to give her a hug. She let herself bathe in the sea of sounds that surrounded her and just rested in their arms. Daisy saw that they all had their emergency suits on, they had been about to open up the entire ship to space in order to save her.

“That was incredible!” Jemma exclaimed as Daisy hugged her tightly. 

“Not as incredible as being back inside,” Daisy laughed.


End file.
